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Student-created identity stories air on community radio and online

What advice would you give to your younger self? How do you know if you’re gay? Which expressions in other languages endure in English speakers’ hearts?

Exploring answers to these questions and more was the creative basis of a WSU student-led digital storytelling and technology skills-building project that recently aired on community radio station KRFP and is now accessible online.

June Sanders.
Sanders

Seven students in digital technology and culture (DTC) Assistant Professor June T. Sanders’ class last fall conceived, developed and produced the project, applying what they learned about interviewing, scripting, framing and other aspects of creating nonfiction stories while gaining hands-on experience with audio recording and editing equipment.

“We were thinking of solid foundations of identity, foundations of our community, what holds us up, what creates us and what affects how we move through the world,” Sanders said.

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WSU Insider

How one society rebounded from ‘the worst year to be alive’

It was the worst time to be alive, according to some scientists. From 536 C.E. to 541 C.E., a series of volcanic eruptions in North and Central America sent tons of ash into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight, chilling the globe, and destroying crops worldwide. Societies everywhere struggled to survive. But for the Ancestral Pueblo people living in what today is the U.S. Southwest, this climate catastrophe planted the seeds for a more cohesive, technologically sophisticated society, a new study suggests.

Tim Kohler
Kohler

“This story makes sense to me,” says Tim Kohler, an archaeologist at Washington State University, Pullman, who has studied climate impacts on the Pueblo people of different eras but was not involved in the new work. He says the disturbance and subsequent reorganization of the Ancestral Puebloans provide clues to what makes societies resilient in the face of dramatic climate change.

Climate data from tree rings from northern Arizona suggest the region suffered abnormally cold temperatures and drought between the years 534 and 569. So the Ancestral Puebloans, like people around the globe, endured the harsh weather conditions of the time. Yet within a few decades, they had bounced back and reorganized into a larger, more cohesive civilization, the team reported last week in Antiquity.

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Science 

Big gaps in quest to sequence genomes of all animals

Efforts to sequence the genomes of the world’s animals tend to focus on those that most resemble humans with the work conducted almost entirely in the Global North, according to an analysis led by Washington State University.

Scott Hotaling.
Scott Hotaling

“With genome assemblies accumulating rapidly, we want to think about where we are putting our efforts. It’s not being spread evenly across the animal tree of life,” said lead author Scott Hotaling, a WSU post-doctoral researcher. “Invertebrates are still very underrepresented, which makes sense given that people seem to care more about vertebrates, the so-called ‘charismatic megafauna.”

The authors, Hotaling, Frandsen and WSU associate professor Joanna Kelley, also noted that the vast majority of genetic sequencing work is happening in developed countries often called the Global North because most are located in the Northern Hemisphere. Three countries, the United States, China and Switzerland produce the most. There were even certain proclivities for different regions with North America doing the most sequencing of mammals and insects, Europe of fish and Asia of birds.

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WSU Insider
Science Daily

WSU Tri-Cities is one of nine College Campuses in the US chosen for a Learner Success Lab

Shifting economic pressures and changing technologies have caused universities and colleges to make extensive changes to their delivery of educational experiences, which has only been expedited amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

That is why Washington State University Tri-Cities is participating in a new cohort of nine colleges and universities for a Learner Success Laboratory.

Kathleen McAteer
Kathleen McAteer

Kate McAteer, WSU Tri-Cities vice chancellor for academic and student affairs and professor of biological sciences, said the pandemic has exposed inequities and has created new challenges that demand that universities and colleges adapt and innovate.

“WSU Tri-Cities serves a high population of students that are the first in their families to attend college, but also a high population of students that have to work to support their families, in addition to other pressures, while they are going to school,” she said. “We are building on efforts during the pandemic to create a place where all students have a strong sense of belonging. The Learner Success Lab will help equip us with tools, important discussions with fellow institutions and research-driven practices that will help us shape the future of learning at WSU Tri-Cities.”

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nbc right now

 

Jan. 6, and the larger plan to overturn the election

The date was shortly after last November’s presidential election. Mr. Meadows, then President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, was replying to a member of Congress who had asked whether the White House was urging GOP state lawmakers to send alternate pro-Trump electors to Washington.

Cornell Clayton.
Clayton

“The White House was not simply a bystander in the activities at the Capitol building. They were central in coordinating and fomenting it,” says Cornell Clayton, a professor of government at Washington State University and director of the Thomas Foley Institute of Public Policy.

In Arizona, Republican legislators passed a law that takes authority over election lawsuits away from the secretary of state, who’s currently a Democrat, and hands it to the governor, who’s a Republican. In Georgia, Republican lawmakers have weakened the powers of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who refused Mr. Trump’s entreaties to change his state’s results. A candidate endorsed by the former president is running to replace Mr. Raffensperger in 2022.

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The Christian Science Monitor